


Stay

by soullessbrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Series, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soullessbrothers/pseuds/soullessbrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is about to leave for Stanford, has hidden his need to leave. Dean knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> For [casquecest](http://casquecest.tumblr.com).

There’s a space in the bed that the air can’t fill. Dean thinks that he can feel the weight, lighter now, in shaded night and cold blanket. He turns to face it. The pillow is flat. It had been beaten the morning before. He reaches out and strokes his fingers over dry material. It’s stiff, a reminder of sleep-drool and Sam’s breath.

He’s alone.

In the morning, there will be one less bag to carry to the car. The trunk has a spot reserved for nothing and shotgun won’t have feet behind, knees that press if they’re not careful. When he slips into a bar and shark-grins drunken bets from the pool table, Dean can leave with less money. His ribs stretch.

“Sam.”

A flush hisses from the bathroom and Sam is back. He’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, an extra shirt over his chest. Dean thinks that Sam would have heard him. Snores down the hall mean that John would not.

“Sammy.”

“Go back to sleep.”

He doesn’t want to sleep. Dean knows that the missing backpack is under the bed. He had clawed through it while Sam had argued with John. There’s a hunt down Independence way and it rots Dean’s gut. Missouri isn’t California.

“There something you wanna tell me?”

“Not really.”

Stilted. Dean’s in his underwear and the covers won’t save him from the chill. It burns. Sam closes the door and fusses through a wardrobe that’s chipped with old paint. A hanger clicks.

“What you doing?”

“I’m not tired,” Sam says. “I’m just going through my clothes.”

Material slides from bent metal. It’s dull, but the curtains are years-thin. Amber light snakes in, the room sick with grey and orange.

“You can do it in the morning.”

“Go to sleep, Dean.”

He wonders if it’s his fault. Sam won’t spar. He shies with ached knees or bruises that don’t mar his skin. Dean has watched twisted ankles shift from foot to foot and each grimace when John grunts his orders. Sharp, they have to be sharp. Sam is. Sam knows his twenty-times-table and recites lore in acts, line numbers and sings on request.

“Don’t go.”

The clothes stop. Sam turns to the bed. Dean can’t see half of his face. The other is washed with the streetlamp. Lips pressed, Sam’s eye twitches. He has to think. He reasons. Sam takes his time and extrapolates his working until he cuts the answers to one.

“I have to.”

Dean had banked on a threat. Faked papers and a bag, _let me breathe or let me go_ to back John into a corner. Bend or break. He can feel the thrum of his heart in his sides. It quivers to his wrists and legs until they shake. Sat up, chest thick, Dean shakes his head. The pinprick shine of false light points back towards him. He holds it, mouth open, but Sam looks away, can’t keep his gaze.

“Sam. C’mon. It’s gonna get better, I swear.”

“No, Dean. No. It’s not.”

“Dad—”

“Don’t talk to me about Dad. I’m sick of talking about Dad.”

“So listen.”

“No. You hear what I’m saying? No. I’m done. We’re, we’re all done.”

Cool summer air wraps to freeze Dean’s throat. He climbs out of bed and ignores the floorboards, iced wood. Sam takes out another pair of jeans. There are shirts, too many. One, two are dropped to the ground, a pair of Dean’s hand-me-downs, short at the cuffs. He takes three that were bought at Goodwill instead.

“C’mon. Talk to me.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? You always wanna talk and I say no. I say yeah now, and you’re just gonna blow me off?”

“Sounds like.”

Sam doesn’t hide. He stalks to the other side of the bed and yanks the backpack from underneath the mattress. Dropped to the bed, it’s unzipped, opened, and Sam folds his additions army-style. He stops.

“Have you been in here?”

“Sam—”

“Have you been in my, my stuff, my things?”

“Can you blame me?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s personal!”

“And you running off to leave us ain’t?”

Cold is colder, ice hot between them. Sam glares.

“It’s my decision.”

“When are you gonna tell Dad? Or were you just gonna skip out? Were you even gonna tell me?”

“You went through my bag!”

“Good thing I did!”

Sam growls. “This, you. God, Dean, do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Excuse me?”

“I can’t. Breathe. If it’s not hunting with Dad, it’s, it’s you, Dean. I can’t move and you’re there, you’re, you’re touching me and, and if you weren’t my brother I’d think, I’d think—”

Tension lines Dean’s muscles. He curls his fists. Nails mark crescents into his palms and he lifts his chin, shuts down.

“Think what, Sam.”

“Dean—”

“No, c’mon. What’d you think, huh?”

He’s quieter. “I’d think you wanted me.”

Nausea rolls through his stomach. He’s been so careful. At every voice that has whispered, Dean has drank and gambled, fought and fucked. The years wasted in shared beds, joint showers when hot water had left in quarter hours, Dean can’t push it away.

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, too.”

Sam pales. “You. You really believe that.”

He’s quicker to pack. Creases are ignored when he shoves the last into that outer pouch. Dean can see the rush of his chest for each harsher breath. He’s shaking, shoulders hunched forward.

“Sam. Don’t. Don’t. You’re here, you, Hell, the way you look at me, I swear—”

“As a brother, Dean, I look at you like a brother, the way I’m supposed to!”

The bag is thrown up to hit Sam’s back and he retreats to the door. It’s nearer than he thinks. A knock, a swear, and Dean hears the grunt from down the hall. John might wake. John could stop him.

“Dad!”

Sam hisses. “What are you doing?”

“You ain’t going anywhere. Dad! He’ll, we can keep you. You don’t gotta touch me, Sammy. I ain’t asking you. One day, I dunno, but right here, right now, you belong here. With me!”

“I belong to me, Dean. I deserve to be normal, not, not the monsters and not you like, like you!”

The landing creaks. “Boys?”


End file.
